Comments (11)

I’ve made computers work like that, they work fine just aren’t as tough.
A friend of mine had a laptop that was overheating, one of the fans didn’t spin, but the fan worked, it just wasn’t getting power, and no it wasn’t a new laptop that has speed control, all fans were on all the time on this laptop. So we hooked wires up to it and ran the fan off of a wall power supply. We also took the screen off because it didn’t work and hooked it up to a regular monitor.

I feel sorry for anyone whose professional image is so closely tied to the appearance of the hardware they choose.
I mean, their professional skills are obviously worthless if you can BUY replacement respect at a computer retailer.

… And I suppose “hackers” are nothing more than evil little “geeks” too. Right? I say no, but apparently I might be in the minority here. I mean, the thing does seem to be running Linux so he/she obviously isn’t very “professional.”

But when I look at that computer I’m tempted to think that whoever modded it might not have had the money to buy another Windows license – even Windows 8! So yes. It’s not very professional if your profession is impressing the non technical Mister Blackwell’s of the world (aka Apple users). It’s not like knowledge or skill had anything to do it.

At the risk of only seeing a cigar when I’m looking at a cigar: this picture did give me a chuckle–even as I felt no need whatever to defend my geekhood or go into a philosophical diatribe over the caption.

Maybe it’s me but It seems some people don’t know what a “hacker” is. So just to be clear, forget all the misconceptions that Hollywood and other sources like the main stream press might have told you. Even goggling the word might result in different definitions.

A “hacker” is simply a curious person or group of people who like to re-engineer things to better suit their own needs or even someone else’ needs. But a hacker is more than that. A hacker may actually “hack” some thing apart in order to better understand how that thing works before reassembling it with either original components, other components or any combination thereof. You might even say a hacker is also an experimenter. In fact, I tend to think of a hacker in today’s 21st century high tech circles what an alchemist might have been in the 17th/18th century which is when that most famous alchemist Isaac Newton lived. (Can you imagine what he might have done with a computer?!)

But one thing is for sure. A “hacker” is not necessarily some evil little nerd or “geek” bent on taking over the technological world. That seems to be a Hollywood stereotype.

So let’s look at that headline again: The Laptop Guaranteed to Kill Your Professional Image

But here’s my question: A professional WHAT?!

And there’s the humor. Because if you are any kind of professional who relies on visual biases and needs/wants to appeal to the fashion-sense non-technical “Apple-tard” masses of the world like that famous fashion critic Mister Blackwell, then you are probably all about appearances and zero-percent about substance. And if that’s you then yes, this laptop probably will be bad for your image.

But if you ask me, I think a laptop like that in the hands of a professional “hacker” might actually enhance appearances. But then, I’m probably a little biased going the other way since I also see “art”!

GEEK TRIVIA

DID YOU KNOW?

Thanks to metal shortages during World War II, there was a three year span of time where Oscar recipients received a plaster statue painted gold; after the war the Academy replaced the plaster statues with the traditional gold-plated metal ones.